True, but that will be more the perfect candidate/a time when politicians work for us; I have some good writing on that; but for now: Cenk has all four of your insightful requirements. Name recognition needs to be wider, but we can work on that.
Why someone is motivated is far more important than who is who is motivated 
If Cenk’s motivation was cash, he’d be a multimillionaire right now and that’s just a fact. Ivy league, NBC, dad knew presidents and yet, here we are…
Cenk chose a different path, but not an easier one:wink:
Always remember, every second of every day that nobody does anything without believing that they’re doing the “right” thing.
It makes it easier to see common ground topics with people who understand their reality differently.
The people we need to reach are marinated in propaganda 24/7 and humor can cut through without injury 
4 Likes
You weren’t alone 
Being aware of the world, we all have a choice.
It’s for us to choose love or fear
Love is hope
Fear is dispair
Love is giving
Fear is grasping
Understanding where people are coming from can intelligently design our approach to bring conservatives into unity when they realize we want everyone to achieve their fullest potential, regardless of the circumstances of their birth or anything else.
We’re fueled by love, not fear
2 Likes
I Love this idea…and yes you have brought hope to me and my family since We began watching your broadcast…thank you
2 Likes
Ive been waiting for the progressives to organize. That is what we have been missing. As a person with adhd and executive functioning issues I see that. That being said i have mentioned before in chats that a large LARGE amount of progressive people are nuerodiverse. I suggest bringing in people that know the rights and clear wrongs when it comes to navigating and speaking to people on the spectrum. They are also the ones who sre targets of all the new laws going into effect. I dont just mean the LGBTQ+ community but as someone who sees patterns its obvious that alot of people who are neurodiverse are apart of that community. Not only that they are the ones along with minorities who lose when it comes to the public education system. But we are all so tired from fighting our own generational trauma and fighting for IEPs at schools that we cant fight or volunteer. Those resources for my kid take from another kid. How are schools not funded by need? Make the fight personal. Bring in teacher unions and social movements. Lets start a lawsuit if theres standing. I still have no idea why its not illegal, equal or racist for schools to be funded by federal,local and state and that is based on taxes and people voting for funding. I also have a fb group in colorado that i manage called real jobs colorado. I spread union information but im willing to be more annoying. It has about 18k people. People who are neurodiverse can be really really productive on things we hyperfocus on. We just need the help setting some of it up. Its an untapped social movement with a union or two. Ive done research on routes in colorado for marches but even here in colorado our governor Polis fights teacher unions. My kid is in 4th grade and he gets bullied for having long hair. This may not be florida but the sickness is spreading through the tvs.
2 Likes
Hi b1on1c,
I agree heartily that it’s essential to be creative in drawing attention to our movement, to catch eyes and ears in a way that strikes those sensory nerves with enough charge to pull in hearts and minds. I think humor can be very powerful in that way. From my perspective as a songwriter, I have been moved by music that has inspired many a fight for justice. I’ve been writing a song that is at the same time catchy, humorous and hard hitting at corporate criminality as it is enabled by those in government and the judicial system who are handed the responsibility to create and enforce laws in a way that justly serves, to the best of their ability, the citizenry as a whole rather than just those who already possess obscene wealth and power and will never be satiated in the pursuit of ever more.
I’ll present my idea in a more general response, I think you’ll like the creative energy of it. Cheers.
2 Likes
I love this @whatsupremacy. Please let me know how we can coordinate. I would like to collaborate with some add-ons to your idea:
I have written a 3 part visual essay to portray the overlapping on music and politics:
Part 1: “Don’t let the sun go down on me” by Elton John – sang By Archie Williams— How this song, although it apears to have a different meaning as it is enbodied by Archi’s unjust imprisonment (he spent 37 years for a crime he din’d commited and was later proven by DNA evidence).
This part can spark a discussion about the ACTUAL 2-tier justice system in America, and we can compare it to current claims of the 2-tier system being so injust to the priviledged, like trump.
-
Preach – By John Legend: A discussion on how effective can music and artist be when tryng to exert positive political change in the world. This can be used as seque for a REAL WORLD CALL TO ACTION. I will expand on a different topic of this forum (I will create that topic)
-
Let Her go – By Passenger: Can an Unpolitical song have a political interpretation? Yes, we may be risking of “letting go” democracy.
That is Work In Progress, but I can provide those deliverables in the same order and maybe a wrap-up video. The three essays have the following unifyng thread:
- A non-political song that by being embodied like Archie Williams DOES become political.
- An inherently political and how it can be overlooked and underestimated: by the public, y recommendation algorithms.
- How we can think of it as political if we think of “HER” = “Democracy” in “Let her go” and how this can still a sense of urgency and importance in the upcoming election.
George Lakoff does allude to this approach on an interview with Cenk as to point out the importance of our emotions on the decision-making process.
Please let me know if this is something we can add onto what you have in mind.
1 Like
To FouthWallDragon,
To get to the song idea that’s been tugging at my shirt like a child needing, demanding extraordinary attention, it’s this:
The song is called “Citizens’Arrest”. It’s based on an episode of the original Andy Griffith Show in which Gomer Pyle, still a pre-marine backwoods auto mechanic, gets a traffic ticket from Deputy Barney Fife for making an illegal U-turn. If you’re not familiar with it, I’d say it’s a little iconic and can be found as a separate 3 & 1/2 minute clip on YouTube.
Okay, so I had to cut a bunch because I got 5426 characters over the 3000 limit that I didn’t know about until I tried to send. Trying to salvage the most relevant parts but that may result in some seemingly shuffled puzzle pieces.
So I thought of a sort of demonstrative spectacle in which a sizeable group of “citizens” carries out an “arrest” of a corporation based on the sound rationale that if corporations do indeed have “personhood”, are they not supposed to bide by the same laws as the rest of us “persons”?
So of course the arrest would be symbolic and we would not be able to pick up the headquarters of Purdue Pharma or Exxon, et.al and haul ‘em off to the pokey, but if done cleverly with enough of a crowd to draw a crowd, maybe bigger media attention? That’s a long shot, but I can tell you that we have almost no shot without a catchy marching theme for us to sing to energize us and to get people we don’t know to hear us.
So on that notion I started to write lines about the scene with Barney and Gomer, the relevance to the fight we are now facing for the soul of no less than humanity, let alone democracy. And then the examples. The perpetual damn examples! Cenk said it when he was reading from his book on the air on Monday night. He was talking about payday lenders and he said “I didn’t go further into detail about how terrible they are, I mean, there’s already SO many examples . . . “ or something like that.
So what I have at present is a two alternating acoustic guitar chord “folk rap” of stinging lines that rhyme and dance and fly around and laugh that has evolved into an unwieldy 5 pages and I have not been able to decide how to edit it, or make it into separate “parts”, one for each corrupt industry, I don’t know. I wrestle every day with whether or how to go forward but twhen I listen to Cenk & Ana and Dr.Richey, they’re talking about JUST what this song is about and I want them to, whether or not it reaches a bigger audience, I want to share my work with this community. I want my favorite hosts to see how well I’m learning what they have taught me. The song reads like a book report on “Justice Is Coming” or a term project for the class they’re teaching.
If there is interest as you’ve expressed here 4WD, I’ll be duly motivated to bring it home to a manageable recorded form or you can just have fun with the whole damn mostrosity as it is for now.
In any case, THANK YOU and I do hope we can collaborate.
Cenk has been saying it for years now. If we want to invoke change we’ll have to stop playing patty cakes and worrying about decorum. There’s a reason Trump won the election. He expressed the anger his voters felt. Trump is a monster but he knew what he was doing. We don’t have to be like him but being perpetually polite will get us nothing.
This movement is very encouraging and provides a space to believe in change.
4 Likes
The key is to be surgically precise in the targeting and unimpeachable in the truth because “the truth shall set you free” is fact.
Passionate debate doesn’t mean an attack and a domination of the opponent when the goal is to convert your “supposed enemy” into an friend 
Focus the passion on common ground issues that are unassailable for conservative attacks and will be universally supported.
Always remember, love is everyone’s motivation and understanding this makes finding the common ground easier
2 Likes
Hello from the not so coastal east, specifically Pittsburgh, PA.
Part of what I had to cut from my message last night was a commentary on the songs featured in your essay. I listened to “Preach” and “Let Her Go” last night but couldn’t find Archie Williams until just now on YouTube. So much pulsing in my heart and mind right now from hearing Archie’s story as a prelude to not just hearing but watching the emotion of his story so honestly vibrate through the song.
I identify strongly with each writer/singer’s relationship with the songs they present. John Legend brings a sense of despair into contact with his piano and voice, starting with where he’s at and allowing the physical energy of the music to move his spirit toward hope, his mind to avoid the pitfall of preaching ABOUT the troubles he observes and addresses, acting with the strength that builds in him through making music to exert action that can affect desirable change rather than succumbing to a resignation that all is hopeless and “There’s nothing I can do to make a difference”.
In “Let Her Go”, the writer/singer generalizes some philosophical wisdom about living the human condition to apply to his very personal, painful loss. That experience of loss cannot be cleanly separated from any type of loss that amplifies the appreciation in retrospect of what we had. He is offering his perspective to perhaps advise himself and his audience to not take what is precious for granted. Very applicable to the threat of a loss of what scant threads of democracy we have left in American political society.
Before I exhaust my 3000 character limit, I’ll just say that the meaning Archie Williams injects into an already emotionally intense song to change the way it can be heard and felt is a wonderful essay/discussion topic.
I’m interested to see your visual essay and join a dialogue around it. Thank you.
1 Like
Thanks for those words. I am now more excited in bringing those the real world. I read your other comment and will re-read and my focal point will be on how we can put the ideas together. I’ll get back to you.
I wanted to add a comment about how I’ve noticed sociopolitical content seeping into the newer songs I’ve been writing over the past few months for a 2nd album. From the time I started writing songs I wanted to be able to address sociopolitical matters lyrically, but it didn’t work so well if I was too intentional about being a “political” songwriter. One thing that always rings true in songs that address political issues is that they are generally more impacting when expressed through someone’s very human personal story. Bruce Springsteen does that very well in songs like “The Ghost of Tom Joad” and “Youngstown”, among others.
While “Citizens’ Arrest!” is intentional about being political, it takes its cue from a very identifiable, small town story about everyday people. Some other songs that started without political intention couldn’t help but allow some of those views to shape some of the personal stories from which they originate. That is a direct result of the inescapable awareness and insight I gain from rarely, if ever, missing an episode of the main TYT show and Indisputable. My gratitude to the entire network, not merely for the information provided but for the way I’m able to make sense of and therefore not be paralyzed by how ominous it all can feel sometimes. We all need each other to not be alone in the threatening (literal and figurative) climate that looms. I appreciate the availability of this forum in which to express and exchange ideas 
1 Like
It allows the community to notice that there are others like us. I feel exactly the same about TYT.
I do the same. I keep myself updated. The world makes more sense after getting analysis and insight from them, and this has allowed me to build from then on. So much so, that I want to give back. But in an effective way. I will be posting a crazy idea I got for this movement. I will tag you to see if you are on board.
Crazy times call for crazy measures sometimes. Worst that could happen is that it doesn’t work, much better than not taking the risk and never knowing if it could have. I’ll look forward to seeing what you have up your sleeve. GET CAUGHT TRYING!
Maybe I’m alone here in this post but as a gen z and (as far as I know) most of my friends and I prefer black backgrounds and find it annoying that apps dont have a darkmode in 2023, ugh! When I came to the TYT site, it felt like they were ahead of the times. Finally some apps are coming out with it but I def don’t think this should be changed from the overall TYT site. Again, maybe there are statistics that back up your caims of people feeling like this site is ‘dangerous’ because of the background but I have never felt that way. The reason is pretty simple, it saves on battery power for mobile devices and looks cleaner/sleaker. Would never think of this as a ‘90s’ thing (WHY DID WE STOP?!) I thought this was a new phenomena that people were slow to catch on to; guess the styles of old really do cycle back into the new.
1 Like
Hello Alison,
Before I begin, I feel this is the most appropriate place to make this suggestion, but there isn’t a tag for Cenk’s War Room or Anna’s Salt Mine. I’m an aspiring clinical psychologist, and I will complete my undergraduate degree with a major in psychology and a minor in technical and professional writing. The intersection between these two fields is a passion of mine. While I am far from a professional in either field, I would like to offer some feedback.
Cenk’s campaign slogan is Get caught trying, which makes sense contextually with the political climate. However, when announcing his campaign, he mentioned that running himself or uplifting another candidate and bowing out are acceptable endings. I have minimal experience in political science, but I’m sure humility plays a role in a successful campaign. I feel this is the wrong rhetoric or at least lexicon to promote the progressive movement. If elections are truly won and lost by the undecided voters and middle ground, then I feel expressing so openly the option to drop out of the race isn’t the play. Cenk speaks on many occasions about being a fighter, and I feel that is the image that will stir emotions in potential voters.
I do not feel the campaign slogan needs to be changed but, instead, a reframing of what is considered a success. I do not feel the intention is to meagerly step aside if any candidate decides to run from the democratic party. I do feel there is room for interpretation and misconception. Instead, the humility at the core of TYT to admit when they’re wrong can be generalized to the campaign. The humility to admit defeat if there is a better campaign, but only if there is a better campaign. This if is not an option; instead, it is a challenge for other candidates to aspire to Cenk’s level or succeed. I genuinely believe displaying confidence in a manner that lacks ambiguity could make a significant difference.
On a personal note, I’ve been watching TYT for roughly a year and have only been a member for a few months. I’m happy to be part of the community and make a difference. Thank you for your time, and I hope this helps.
Very Respectfully,
Drake
You are right, dark mode is actually pretty popular. I guess a better statement would be, in 2023 one should have a website that matches user’s expectation on what a delightful experience should look like, and respecting/adapting to user’s light/dark mode setting is one example of how to get closer to this goal.
100% agreement here. I personally have no immediate responce to a site with a white background but I loath when it doesn’t have a setting to change it. A simple option of light/dark mode, and even a prefered theme/color, goes a long way into making me feel like people put thought into how I want to use the app.
1 Like
Other than petitions, voting, and writing/calling senators, what other actions can we urge people to take to put pressure on Congress? If anyone has any ideas or answers to this I want to hear them.
I don’t know if it exists, but if there is data on peoples’ general opinion on the effectiveness of petitions and writing senators, I would imagine general opinion is not very good. People who follow politics closely will of course participate in putting pressure on congress through petitions et cetera, but we need to make the actions we urge people to take ACCESSIBLE to people who don’t follow politics closely. Probably more importantly, we need to make actions to put pressure on congress accessible to people who feel little to no faith in things like petitions (again, I assume the general public’s faith in petitions is very low).
I know the $15 minimum wage petition worked to put pressure on Bernie, and subsequently big businesses. So it worked in that case. But is there any way we can re-brand petitions, call them something totally different, or frame them differently in the way we present them to people? It may sound trivial, but I think presenting them in new ways could make a huge difference in the number of people who participate in them. Especially young people. Right now, I assume when people (especially young people) hear “petition,” it does the opposite of inspire or motivate. Off the top of my head, here are some (very) rough examples of different ways to present petitions:
-“Sign this form if you want to EMBARRASS such-and-such senator”
-referring to petitions as “pressure forms,” “pressure pledges,” “embarrassment forms,” “accountability forms,” “justice document / justice pledge,” “fuck-you forms” “you-work-for-us forms,” “you-will-do-what-we-tell-you-to-do forms” “fuck-around-and-find-out forms” “you-work-for-us-not-your-donor forms.”
After creating and presenting the petition(s) in new ways (or utilizing some other form of pressure), can we coordinate with OTHER youtube and podcast channels? Can we agree to present the petition to Breaking Points, Secular Talk, Hasan’s channels, Leftovers and the H3 Podcast, The Majority Report, and any other people who those people at those channels know? Spread it like wildfire? Spread it to right-leaning channels as well (and show them the polling that 74% of Republicans agree with this issue, and tell them that you will give them credit on YOUR show if they end up presenting it to their audience on their show)? I’m aware of the drama with some of the other channels I mentioned - I don’t think that should affect this strategy. The point would be to form alliances around THIS particular issue, no matter what the relationship is. I believe forming alliances over a mutually agreed upon issue with people you may have a strained relationship with is how a lot of things have gotten done in the past.
1 Like